


Mixed Emotions of Love and Hate

by DraceDomino



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crying, Drama & Romance, F/F, Lesbian Sex, Lovers To Enemies, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 17:41:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraceDomino/pseuds/DraceDomino
Summary: Everything has led to this moment. Edelgard's insane war against the Church of Seiros has pitted student against student and knight against knight, and now Catherine must stand on the battlefield across from the woman she once loved. She would do anything for Lady Rhea, although the price of her loyalty is heavy...can she really bring herself to kill the woman that once meant all the world to her?





	Mixed Emotions of Love and Hate

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This is pretty different than a lot of my stories. While this does contain sexual elements, they're a backdrop to the heavy drama and angst involved. This story does involve character death, though I want to be clear that aspect is in no way sexualized. 
> 
> If you enjoy it, your comments are very much appreciated. I'll admit I'm a little self-conscious about posting something so out of my wheelhouse! And if you really like it, check me out on [Twitter!](http://www.twitter.com/DraceTales) Just think of our budding friendship that will last two days before you say to yourself "I followed this guy because of that angsty Three Houses fic, but all he does on Twitter is make shitposts and talk about how he wants to be dommed by She-Ra girls."
> 
> One last thing! This story does have some steamy hot and heavy scenes. I took some inspiration for these scenes from [Bramble](http://twitter.com/bramblefix), whose Twitter you should really check out. I imagine if you're into Catherine/Shamir you've probably already seen them, but they have some DELICIOUS intense and intimate art of the pairing.
> 
> Enjoy the angst!

Mixed Emotions of Love and Hate  
-by Drace Domino

Fhirdiad was in flames, but not even the taste of soot in the air soured Catherine’s tongue as much as the bile rising within her. This war was pointless. Another stupid grasp for power by another stupid noble, fracturing peace for no other reason than some lunatic’s desire for more than what she already had. Edelgard was a monster...and that ruthless bitch of a professor was no better. The proof of it was all across Fhirdiad and indeed the entire continent - burned homes, bleeding corpses, and the clash of steel replacing what was once the sounds of commerce and peace.

Catherine would follow Lady Rhea to the death...but she didn’t need that kindly matron’s request to stand against this madness. It was what any good knight would do. It was what any woman that knew what the poison of war was capable of would do. With her hands tightening upon the hilt of Thunderbrand Catherine rushed forward across the battlefield, leading her troops and laying into the empress’ forces with the sort of wicked efficiency she was known for. Footmen, archers, mages...it didn’t matter. That massive, spiked blade charred flesh as it cut through it, leaving bodies smoldering rather than bleeding and causing even glancing blows to be far, far more painful than most soldiers could endure. With her battalion at her back and the flags of Fhirdiad and the Church of Seiros still hanging overhead, she rushed forward without a trace of fear. When the cry of the Immaculate One echoed across the battlefield there were those that found themselves unnerved and shaken...but not her.

The good ones, like Lady Rhea, possessed great power but behaved peacefully until provoked. The heretics, like Edelgard, poked a hornet’s nest in the hopes that treasure would leak out rather than suffering.

“To the left flank!” Catherine roared, pointing for her soldiers to fall swiftly in line. As arrows whizzed overhead to push back the enemy’s line, Catherine’s eyes narrowed at a new threat rising on the battlefield. A tuft of obnoxious blue hair, a cocky smirk, and a pair of heavy silver gauntlets rose to meet her.

“I always knew I’d get a chance to fight you, Cassandra!” Caspar laughed, rushing the blonde woman and trampling the ashes of the dead. “I’ll carry that sword better than you ever cou-”

There was no hesitation when Caspar neared her and Catherine suddenly spun, driving forward and jamming Thunderbrand into the cocky twerp’s abdomen. Without a bit of strain the soldier twisted the blade and suddenly jerked it to the side, leaving Caspar a crumpled, torn mess on the ground below. Wounds were cauterized instantly by the sword’s flame, leaving him a tangled, twisted, charred mess for his final few seconds of life. Sputtering and sobbing, the upstart gazed up at the powerful woman looming above him framed by ash and fire, and the final words he heard were those of the superior warrior, reminding him of his inadequacy.

“‘You never could pick your fights.” Catherine spat out, unflinching as she gazed at the mess of a boy she used to chat up in the sparring arena. “Always knew it’d get you killed sooner or later.”

Without another word, Catherine turned and began to rush to the flank to join her troops. The woman barely made it twenty paces out from Caspar’s mangled body before she was stopped once more, this time by an arrow that nearly missed her belly. After a swift sidestep Catherine pivoted, glancing back first at the arrow stuck in the ground...and then to the archer herself. She knew who it was even before she saw the other’s face. That fletching and that level of precision across a smoke-swept battlefield? It could only be one person.

“I don’t want to do this, Shamir…” Catherine rolled her head to face the woman standing on the nearby hillside, her body shrouded in smoke and silhouetted in the flames deeper into Fhirdiad. Her hands tightened upon the hilt of Thunderbrand and her eyes narrowed - studying everything from the grip Shamir held on her silver bow to the woman’s casual gait. She always did make it look so effortless. “Turn around and leave. I will kill you for Lady Rhea.”

“You were always so afraid of disappointing her.” Shamir sighed, just as she levelled her bow and nocked another arrow, pointing it to the head of her former love. “I guess today, that’s what we’ll both be doing.”

***

“Is that a smile? Did I actually make you smile?” Years ago, Catherine’s voice was softer and lighter, and the rigors of war seemed blissfully far away. With one mighty shove she pressed Shamir flat to the bed in her quarters, and the weight of the muscular woman made the sniper’s slender figure sink all the deeper into the mattress. Looming over Shamir, Catherine’s shaggy blonde locks were an absolute mess - pulled and teased, tangled and messy, and of course, laced with the sweat of furious passion. Her grin was objectively massive compared to the tiny, smug smile playing on Shamir’s own lips...but considering the quiet girl’s general personality, she was practically jumping for joy. “Aren’t you the prettiest thing when you smile? Maybe I should ask Hilda if she can set you up with a dressmaker.”

“Don’t push it.” Shamir murmured from her spot below Catherine, though the smile continued, small as it was. Both women were spent and exhausted, naked save for the sheen of sweat and nectar that glazed them both. From Catherine’s finely toned and well-muscled figure to Shamir’s dagger-like shape, each of them was glowing with the sort of bliss that could only come from hours of intense lovemaking...with the promise of more to come. As Shamir’s hands lifted to wrap around the toned shoulders of the larger woman she took a deep and savory breath, enjoying the scent of their union just as she always did. “You did a good job for once, is all. I almost came that time.”

Almost. The deep scratches on Catherine’s back, the soaked sheets underneath Shamir’s ass, and the fact that three doors down Lysithea was convinced the monastery was haunted with a moaning spectre was proof that she went far, far past almost. Catherine merely grinned all the wider at her lover’s tease, though, and rewarded her for the playfulness by darting her head down and pressing her mouth greedily against her slender, kissable throat. A gasp escaped from Shamir underneath the sudden torrent of attention, and her skilled fingers dipped deep into those blonde locks. Twisting within them, tangling for a grip, and keeping Catherine moving away from her sensitive throat and then down to her shoulder. The kisses grew hungrier and hungrier until suddenly Shamir felt the sting of teeth against her flesh, and her hips bucked forward as her voice filled the room suddenly once more in the form of a sharp cry.

“W...Well...maybe I came. Once.” Shamir finally murmured after she calmed down, and tilted her head inward to peck the soldier against her temple. “A tiny one.”

***

A scratch crossed Catherine’s cheek - just a tiny one - as an arrow whizzed dangerously close to her head. The bleeding sting fueled her momentum and adrenaline to close the distance faster, pounding her legs so hard that the rattle of her armor overtook even the sounds of distant violent conflict. Shamir was lining up yet another arrow, and Catherine could tell that her patience would be deadly - she rarely missed a shot that she took the time to measure. With a desperate battle cry Catherine rose her armored arms in the split second after the arrow was unleashed, and there was a blinding pain that shot through her as the head pierced her gauntlet, embedding deep within her forearm.

Nearly up the hill, Catherine thrived on the pain and the grief. With one last violent surge of fury she closed the distance before Shamir was able to nock another shot, and Thunderbrand and the bow both went tumbling to the dirt below as the soldier clashed against the archer. The arrow sticking from Catherine’s forearm snapped in two as they tumbled down together, striking the ground and rolling down the other side of that ash-swept hill.

There was blinding fury in Catherine in that moment, drawn less from the horrific agony in her arm and more from the somehow more keen sting of Shamir’s betrayal. It wasn’t long before Shamir was on her back pinned underneath the heavier, stronger woman, but unlike years ago there were no smiles, no delicate kisses, no joy to be had. The sweat they both wore was one of grueling hostility, and the wet spot Shamir was forced into was a blend of mud and the blood of dead soldiers. And instead of a swarm of loving kisses across the archer’s collarbone, Catherine brought down her uninjured arm, crashing her gauntleted forearm so hard upon her former lover’s chest that it instantly dislocated her shoulder.

“Ahhhh!” Shamir’s head rolled back as she offered a cry to the open air, a rare sign of pain from a woman that so stoically tried to keep everything in control. The discomfort built as Catherine kept her arm wedged down, squeezing her arm across her former friend’s chest, looming over her with fury rising to the surface. Threads of spit dangled from Catherine’s lips, her eyes burned and the wound on her cheek bled...a stark, stark difference from the joy Shamir usually saw when gazing up from that position.

“You...betrayed her! You betrayed me!” Catherine roared, her voice aching in agony both physical and deeper, tears at the corners of her eyes. As a skilled veteran soldier it had been many, many, many years since battle brought her to cry...but this? This seemed too cruel even for war. “How could you do this to us?! Why would you do this to us?!”

Even if Shamir had good reasons, it didn’t matter, nor would the archer dare to confess them. The lines in the sand had been drawn, and the second the first arrow grazed Catherine’s flesh there was no chance to ever return. Between the two of them deaths had compiled that couldn’t be forgiven, and now the final question was simply who among them would be next. Would Catherine avenge Sylvain for the arrow he took in the throat, or wreak vengeance for the dagger Shamir had slipped into the gaps of Annette’s armor? Or would Shamir make sure that Caspar’s brutal mutilation and the loss of Dorothea’s arm were not in vain?

There was much for the two to hate each other for.

***

There was much for the two to love each other for. Shamir’s smiles were hard-earned but Catherine never failed to claim the prize, and it was something she could only do because the pair had such a long history of cooperation and friendship. The Knights of Seiros were stronger because of their bond, for they were a force to be reckoned with on any battlefield...and nearly inseparable away from it. Anyone coming across the pair would wonder why they were always together, considering Shamir’s reserved personality and Catherine’s boisterous desire to embrace excitement. But just as easily, anyone could see within a few minutes of speaking to them that they perfectly complemented each other. Practically one and the same, the knight and the archer.

The truest testament to their connection, however, took place outside of the prying eyes of others. Back in Catherine’s quarters, back in that same creaking, sunken bed, back with the same terrified, ghost-convinced Lysithea three doors down, the two women enjoyed each other in an entirely different form of conflict.

There was still brutality. Still power. Still sweat and screaming and scratching and brawling. There was even still moments of flaring violence where bodies were tossed about the room and they were left sore and weathered by the end. But it was much, much more fun.

“Hnnng...that’s it...that’s my slutty little thing…” Catherine grinned, bearing down harder on Shamir and clutching her fiercely. The arms wrapped about the sniper’s figure were all-encompassing, one closing from her waist all the way to the opposite shoulder and the other pressing a palm firmly, possessively to an exposed breast. Catherine crushed the slender thing against her and held her perfectly in place, just as her hips continued to slam against Shamir from behind. Pinched between them was a specialized toy with a smooth head for both of them to ride - although by virtue of the might held in her core, it was Catherine that did the thrusting, and Shamir the one that braced herself as she was fucked. “I want to hear you scream, partner. I want you to tell the whole damn monastery who you belong to.”

Shamir wasn’t much for talking, and that much was still true that evening. The only difference was it wasn’t because she was trying to be distant and apathetic so much as the fact that her voice was stolen away for the screams that Catherine demanded. She howled like a feral cat in heat as her fingers went white-knuckled in the sheets and Catherine drove that toy deeper and deeper, plunging it into her with such ferocity and desire that she was certain she might break. No one had ever taken her quite like Rhea’s adopted hound, and she was thrilled to be said hound’s bitch.

Shamir did as she was told, screaming until her throat went hoarse, and as a reward she was permitted the chance to savor being crushed against Catherine’s chest. To feel her body slide against that magnificently cut behemoth while their sweat mingled, to experience the visceral rush of hot, lewd breath to the back of her throat. Shamir’s eyes were crossed when they weren’t rolling back in her head, and lines of pure, wet drool escaped the corners of her lips as she was bounced back and forth. The toy they shared, held firmly in place by Catherine’s kegels, drove deep into the sniper every few seconds. She penetrated her harder than any man of the monastery ever could have boasted, and it perfectly blended with the greedy, possessive, dominating glee that Catherine took as she fucked her smaller girl.

Shamir’s body was caught in the midst of almost constant climaxes, claimed as she was with such intense fury. Her body could barely keep up with the momentum as Catherine won her as she won every battle she had ever been in - through nonstop adrenaline, incredible might, and shameless enthusiasm. When Thunderbrand’s wielder was tired of claiming Shamir from behind she didn’t ask the woman to shift positions, she simply pushed her down and rose to her feet, and as Shamir lay quivering with a gaping, gasping slit the blonde stuffed her hand into Shamir’s dark locks and drug her out of the bed.

“Guh...y-you...hnnn...Cather...ah…” Shamir only barely had her senses above her, slit drooling with lines of nectar just as pronounced as the saliva hanging from her mouth, her entire body sweaty and trembling and raw. Catherine swung her with profound force to the nearest wall, and no sooner did Shamir’s back crash against the surface was the warrior upon her again. Hands stuffing underneath her well-sculpted ass to lift her legs upward, chest bearing down on hers to keep her breathlessly pinned, and then that grinning, smirking, bold smile coming to rest against her throat. The toy that Catherine so easily clenched within her slit was once more lined up to Shamir’s entrance, and as she started to slide it forward the beast of a woman hissed against her lover’s throat.

“Don’t break.” She murmured, and drug her tongue with shameless zeal across the sweat-glazed flesh. After a greedy swallow of the salty flavor of a well-fucked Shamir, she slammed forward to lodge her toy again into those folds. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I shattered the woman I loved.”

Shamir’s body was little more than that of a stringless doll that evening, held up only by the sexual fury of her lover, pinned to the wall by virtue of her incredible might and those powerful, wild thrusts. Still, even though her heart was racing faster than she could fathom and even though Catherine was completely ravaging her without hesitation or mercy, those words resonated deep inside of the sniper. They weren’t spoken often between the two...and when they were, they were to be respected. With every ounce of strength left in Shamir’s arms she managed to lift them up to Catherine’s shoulders, and with their faces already so close that they were sharing every staggered breath, managed to choke out a response.

“I...would be...happy…” She suddenly tensed, her legs just barely managing to hook their angles behind that scarred, well-muscled back. Once she was in place she drew her mouth close to Catherine’s own, shivering in the split seconds before they kissed. “...to be broken...by you.”

There were tears in Shamir’s eyes as she was left exposed and raw underneath Catherine’s weight, and she had never been happier.

***

There were tears in Shamir’s eyes as she was pinned, helpless and weak underneath Catherine’s weight, and her sorrow had never been more crippling.

“You’re...on the wrong side of this…” The slender woman hissed, blood lining the corner of her mouth as the weight of her former lover continued to bear down. As if sensing their struggle the roar of the Immaculate One resounded once more over the battlefield, drowning out the sounds of clamor and chaos for a sharp, bellowing second. It was all the more fuel for Shamir to spit forward, clawing against Catherine’s forearm and trying to push it from her chest. “Just listen to that monster! You want to kneel to that?!”

“Lady Rhea is the victim of people like Edelgard.” Catherine responded with absolute conviction, no trace of falter or hesitation in her tone. Her loyalty was absolute, her fealty committed until her dying breath. For all that Rhea had done for her, and for all that the Knights of Seiros did for the common people. Even if that loyalty came with astonishingly heavy costs. “She started this, Shamir. People were happy before she caused this war. W-” Catherine’s eyes flashed, a look of clear, agonized pain crossing her face before she suddenly spat forward. “We were happy! Weren’t we?! I thought...I thought we-”

Catherine was showing weakness, from the quiver in her lip to the tears licking down her cheeks. She hated having to do this, and the weight of it pressed upon her heart with a tremendous pain. With teeth clenched and a hideous expression of sobbing, sweating, and bleeding she practically quaked to her foundations...and in that split second exposed a moment of opportunity. One that Shamir, sentiment be damned, would be a fool to ignore.

Catherine was suddenly overtaken as Shamir’s legs lifted from behind her, and the sniper’s feet hooked against the undersides of the warrior’s arms. With her own furious roar Shamir suddenly kicked forward, driving Catherine away from her and slamming her right back to the ground. Darting forward like a fired arrow, the assassin’s hand dipped to her boot knife and she darted to the form of her old lover, exploiting what she knew about Catherine to gain the upper hand. She knew she favored her right side thanks to an old injury, and so a fierce blow with one of her knees was delivered to a spot where the armor buckled. She knew that Catherine had a tendency to swing wide and heavy, and so she then pressed her knees firm to her underarms, making it hard to gain the rotation. And she knew - with agonizing knowledge - that there was nothing Catherine loved more than when she would kneel atop her chest and gaze down on her from above.

And so she took that position as she brought her knife forward, hoping that Catherine would find some solace in it as the last thing she’d ever see.

“I’m sorry. I love you.” Simple words, fitting of the razor sharp killer. Shamir never was one for flowery speeches or long-winded confessions, and so they flowed naturally from her lips as she brought the dagger down, aiming straight for her lover’s throat for a clean, smooth kill. In that moment of ferocity and suffering, Catherine gazed upon the sight of her beloved...and despite her desire to lay down and die, found the will to fight.

It was over quickly. As Shamir’s fist drew down with her dagger Catherine surged her fist forward, dislocating her own shoulder against Shamir’s knee in the process. She didn’t stop the blade, but she did manage to redirect it...squarely between the breasts she had spent so many hours worshipping. There was a sickening thud that filled the air between them, somehow louder than any of the Immaculate One’s bellows, and Shamir’s eyes snapped open as she gasped, lips parting and a tiny, pathetic squeak escaping her throat.

They both knew from the second the dagger caught flesh that the battle was won...and in that moment the fury between them faded. Shamir collapsed against the chest of the other woman, though it wasn’t for the metal cutting into her lungs or the blood rushing from her senses. She found herself in the embrace of the shaggy-haired blonde, held around the shoulders, cradled and squeezed as if Catherine could somehow fix this nightmare.

“I love you, too…” Thunderbrand’s wielder whispered, sobbing with her face lost in dark blue locks of Shamir’s sweat-laced hair. “I love...love you so much, you...you…”

By the time Shamir looked up, blood had begun escaping her nose and lips, and her eyes were going increasingly red from the savage, deep blow. Despite the pain, despite the knowledge that her last few seconds were upon her, the faintest of smiles appeared on her lips.

Catherine was always the only one that could make her smile, after all.

Shamir fell limp in the arms of her love, and the scream of the Immaculate One carried over the battlefield once more. She would rage on against the usurpers, but for Catherine, the battle had finished. Her body was broken. Her heart was shattered. She couldn’t bring herself to find the strength outside or within to push the still-warm body of her precious Shamir off of her.

Staring up at the smoke and the cinders of war, clutching a corpse against her chest, Catherine simply wept.

***

Staring up at a smug smile, clutching a slender waist within her powerful grasp, Catherine simply laughed.

Boisterous, loud, almost to the point of obnoxious. Catherine roared with delight from the feeling of Shamir’s rump settling across her breasts, and savored every inch of flawless flesh that was on offer for her to study. A smooth belly with just the perfect amount of muscle tone, a pair of modest breasts that would certainly never host any hardship, and then finally the blue-framed face of the sniper offering her the sweetest treasure she could hope for: a smile.

“You’re so...odd.” Shamir murmured, her hands gently stretched out so her fingers could work across the other’s flesh. She traced the muscles at Catherine’s collar, teased a digit across her lips, and swiftly coiled a few shaggy, untamed blonde locks around a single touch. The entire time she was quite contently settled back against the other woman’s breasts, using them as a comfortable cushion as her knees rested upon the bed. “What in the world are you laughing about now?”

“Oh, I was just thinking…” Catherine grinned, a brow arching and a devilish look flashing over her face. “You’d never be so lucky to have me like this in a battle. I’d throw you down in the dirt so hard it’d leave your ass bruised for a week.”

“Is that so?” Shamir quirked a brow in response, and stole her hands away from Catherine’s face and hair as punishment. She settled her arms to fold neatly across her chest just underneath her breasts, and with a playful, teasing look dared to press the issue further with a tiny wiggle of her rump. “You’re saying that I could never best you unless I spent a half hour going down on you?”

“You were down there for forty-five minutes, actually, but yes.” Catherine beamed. She slowly stretched her arms up and above her head, resting into the pillow with a satisfied smile. She could quite merrily lay there all day with Shamir’s rump against her breasts and her slit so close to her chin - a taste of glory always just a nudge of her head away. “Face it, Shamir, you’re deadly at long range...but up close? I’m going to pound you every time, whether we’re naked or not.”

“Ha! Such ego.” Shamir’s shoulders rolled in playful fashion, before suddenly...she attacked! A hand darted to the side of the bed like a shot, and she grasped the still-slippery toy that had just been wedged deep within them both. Holding it like a dagger, she made to desperately plunge it forward, seeing to do little more than thwap her lover squarely in the nose with it. Unfortunately for her, Catherine was far quicker than she ever expected. The soldier’s arm flew forward from its otherwise prone position, her hand neatly settled underneath one of Shamir’s wrists, and the blow was smoothly deflected. That playful arc suddenly turned against its wielder, and Shamir bopped herself squarely between the breasts with the tip of that slippery toy.

“Ow!” The sniper hissed, tossing the thing aside and rubbing her chest where there would no doubt be a tiny bruise. With her lips forming to a pout, she lifted a hand and waggled a finger at Catherine, glowering the entire time. “You...you think you’re so damned good. But I’m going to keep that little trick in mind. You’ll never get that lucky again.”

“Any time you want to try, I’m ready.” Catherine grinned, just before clapping her hands with a nearly-violent slap to the sides of Shamir’s rear. She started pushing her forward, edging the girl’s slit closer and closer to her hungry mouth. “You can whine all you want while you’re up there, but not unless you give me my favorite after-victory snack…”

***

It was...surprising how intact her old quarters were. The various battles waged at Garreg Mach had never gotten so deep as the noble and faculty dorms, and most of them were still intact. Catherine stepped inside her old haunt with a heart that was still heavy three weeks later, pushing the door open and daring to move deeper within.

From outside in the hall, she could hear the rest of the kingdom’s soldiers talking with squatters and former imperials. There was a lot to do in order to turn Garreg Mach back to its original purpose of teaching and protecting the next generation of heroes in this world...but before all that hard work began, she was affording herself a moment to explore. Dressed in casual clothes, bandages still wrapped around one forearm while the other arm’s shoulder was in a sling, she padded over to her old bed and gently crashed down against it.

It was dusty, but...not as dusty as it should have been, considering how long she had been gone from it. Some of the things in the room were slightly out of place from what she remembered, and the spare quiver leaning against the nightstand was enough to tell her why. When the imperials overtook Garreg Mach, their soldiers would have no doubt chosen quarters...and Shamir had picked this one.

Tears. Again. She hated crying, but had been doing plenty of it since everything went to hell. With a weak hand, Catherine moved to open the top drawer of the nightstand, and though it ached her to do so she peeked inside with a growing sense of sorrow and dred. There, on the top shelf just as it always had been, was the toy that she and her beloved had used so very, very much. Sitting atop it was a simple note, written in an elegant short script, and as Catherine read it she could feel the surge of tears crashing against her with screaming, ferocious intent.

“You’ll never get that lucky a third time.”

Catherine collapsed to the floor, burdened by the weight of her sins, and wept.

The End.


End file.
